North Korea’s Kim vows to improve ties with outside world

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un underscored the need to drastically improve his nation’s ties with the outside world as he addressed a major political conference for the third consecutive day.

State media said Kim also reviewed relations with rival South Korea, but didn’t elaborate on what steps he said he wanted to take. Observers had expected Kim to use the first congress of the ruling Workers’ Party in five years to send conciliatory gestures toward Seoul and Washington as he faces deepening economic troubles at home.

In his speech Thursday, Kim “declared the general orientation and the policy stand of our party for comprehensively expanding and developing the external relations,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Friday.

Kim also examined relations with South Korea “as required by the prevailing situation and the changed times,” KCNA said.

The congress is the party’s top decision-making body and reviews past projects, lays out new priorities and reshuffles top officials. This month’s congress was convened as Kim is struggling to overcome what he calls “multiple crises” caused by an economy battered by pandemic-related border closings, a series of natural disasters and U.S.-led sanctions.

In his opening-day speech, Kim admitted his previous economic developmental plans had failed and vowed to lay out a new five-year development plan. On the second day of the meeting, he said he would bolster his country’s military capability.

The congress comes as Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Trump has remained stalled for about two years because of disputes over U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea. President-elect Joe Biden, who is to take office Jan. 20, has called Kim a “thug” and is unlikely to hold any direct meeting with him unless North Korea takes serious steps toward denuclearization.

Ties between the Koreas had flourished after Kim entered talks with Trump. But Pyongyang halted exchanges with Seoul and resumed harsh rhetoric against South Korea after Kim’s second summit with Trump in Vietnam in early 2019 collapsed over the president’s rebuttal of Kim’s push for sweeping sanctions relief in return for a limited denuclearization step.

Some observers say North Korea is frustrated because Seoul has failed to break away from Washington and revive stalled joint economic projects held back by the U.S.-led sanctions. They also speculate North Korea initially thought South Korea would help it win sanctions relief but got upset after Kim returned home empty-handed from the 2019 summit with Trump.

Experts say North Korea may reach out to South Korea first to promote the reconciliation mood before pushing for talks with the Biden administration. The stalled Kim-Trump diplomacy began after South Korean officials met Kim in early 2018 and conveyed to Washington his intent to deal away his nuclear program in exchange for economic and political benefits.